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Remember the Pueblo

PYONGYANG, North Korea - Moored on a river here in the North Korean capital is the U.S.S. Pueblo, described as an "armed spy ship of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces."

The Pueblo is the Navy ship that North Korea seized in 1968 in waters off the country's east coast, setting off an international crisis. One American sailor was killed and 82 others were imprisoned for nearly a year and tortured into writing confessions. To signal that the confessions were forced, the sailors listed accomplices like the television character Maxwell Smart.

When forced to pose for a photo, some crew members extended their middle fingers to the camera, explaining to the North Korean photographer that this was a Hawaiian good luck sign. After the photo was published and the North Korean guards realized they'd been had, the sailors suffered a week of particularly brutal torture.

As the first Navy vessel to surrender in peacetime since 1807, the Pueblo was a humiliation for America. And it has become a propaganda trophy for North Korea, with ordinary Koreans paraded through in organized tours to fire up nationalist support for the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il.

Then Mr. Kim decided the propaganda would be even better if the ship was moved from the east coast to the capital. So the Korean Navy disguised the Pueblo as a freighter, ran up the North Korean flag and sailed it for nine days through international waters around South Korea to the west coast of North Korea, and then up a river to Pyongyang. In 1999, the Pueblo opened triumphantly to crowds in Pyongyang. (Photos are at nytimes.com/opinion.)

"When this ship left Wonsan port [on the east coast], Japanese ships mobilized to check it," said Col. Kim Jung Rok, who as a 28-year-old sailor helped storm the Pueblo and is now in charge of it. "But then they saw it was an ordinary freighter and withdrew."

It's a bad sign that the Western intelligence experts who monitor North Korean ports and examine satellite images didn't notice that the Pueblo had moved. President Bush's refusal to engage North Korea, as the Clinton administration had done, has already led the North to revive plutonium production. Mr. Bush's backup plan is to stop North Korean nuclear proliferation by intercepting nuclear materials as they leave the country -- but that's wishful thinking. If we couldn't detect the transfer of a famous 176-foot ship, it's ludicrous to think we could stop the smuggling of a grapefruit-size chunk of plutonium.

The Pueblo is also a reminder that Kim Jong Il is unrelenting in promoting nationalism -- and hostility to the West -- to keep himself in power. That prickly Korean nationalism -- think of the French, cubed -- offers the only shred of legitimacy the Dear Leader has. Many tens of thousands of ethnic Koreans in Japan support North Korea, not because they are Communists but because they are patriots -- they see the Dear Leader as an authentic Korean nationalist, in contrast with the American quislings in the South.

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The biggest mistake America has made since World War II has been to misunderstand nationalism. That myopia now bolsters Kim Jong Il. When Bush administration officials rattle sabers at North Korea, they're helping to keep Kim Jong Il in power.

Since the War of 1812, only two nations, Russia and China, have posed a major military threat to our home turf. Now North Korea, with its nuclear weapons and three-stage Taepodong missiles, is apparently joining that list, and emerging as a potential global eBay for anyone seeking plutonium. And our plans to deal with that problem by intercepting shipments are as loony as North Korea itself.

But the story of the Pueblo's capture also offers a hint of how to proceed. Initially, many Americans favored a hard line. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, for example, urged dropping a nuclear bomb on one North Korean city.

President Lyndon Johnson resisted, noting that bombing North Korea would not bring our hostages home. So the U.S. tried full-bore diplomacy. It was frustrating, slow and not wholly successful, but in the end was the best of a bunch of bad alternatives.

It's time for us to learn from the Pueblo again. The Bush administration's dismissal of serious, direct diplomacy has made Korea more dangerous. Engagement may be arduous, frustrating and often unsatisfying, but it's the only option we have left.

Op-Ed Columnist E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com

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A version of this op-ed appears in print on July 19, 2005, on Page A00021 of the National edition with the headline: Remember the Pueblo. Today's Paper|Subscribe